Macuna - Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization.
Social life among the Macuna is very much structured around the rules
of descent and marriage. The traditional residence group inhabiting a
maloca was a local descent group. Larger spatial groupings—the
former neighborhood and actual village—are based on the interplay
between the two principles of descent and marriage alliance, forming
closely tied kinship communities.

Political Organization.
Macuna society is unstratified and lacks centralized leadership. The
conceptual scheme of five specialist roles, polarizing chiefs and
servants, provides a hierarchical political ideology that has no
counterpart in actual political practice. Every maloca had—and
still has—its headman. Sometimes an influential headman gains
authority over an entire neighborhood or a larger territorial group.
Nevertheless, his authority, which is based on charisma, sacred
knowledge, and political skill, remains limited. Status as headman or
chief is not hereditary. Authority is acquired, maintained, and
displayed principally by sponsoring communal rituals where manioc beer
and coca (and occasionally smoked fish and meat and wild forest fruits)
are redistributed among participant families. This competitive and
informal political organization underscores the egalitarian character of
Macuna society; structural inequality is practically limited to
relations between sexes and elder and younger brothers. Although men
dominate women and elder brothers have authority over younger ones, even
these authority relations are essentially expressed in terms of mutual
complementarity. Today every village community has an administrative
leader (
capitán
). Traditionally, it was the task of the headman to ensure peace and
social harmony. Respect for local shamans and the force of tribal norms
embedded in religion and kinship relations provided—and still
provides—an informal yet highly effective system of social
control. Infractions of social norms are believed to result in
supernatural sanctions, disease, and misfortune.

Conflict.
In the remote past, tribal wars were fought between the Macuna and
their traditional enemies; these wars were grounded in cosmological
beliefs and apparently had no practical ends such as the acquisition of
land, women, or ritual property. Bride-capture was a common source of
political conflict as well as a means of expressing it. Today, the
competition for political leadership occasionally leads to social
conflicts. Unequal distribution of White trade goods and the
individualization of the domestic economy tend to create tensions in the
village community.